In April 2017, at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, the U.S. President and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down to an exquisite dinner in a regal, golden decor setting. As the two heads of state are eating dessert, the U.S. President suddenly announces to China’s president – “We’ve just launched 59 missiles…”
Golden setting in the dining room at the Mar-a-Lago
“Exquisite dinner in a regal setting”, the President explained April 11th in an interview with Fox News Maria Bartiromo:
“I was sitting at the table, we had finished dinner. We’re now having dessert, and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you have ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it,” said Trump, who hosted the Chinese president at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday and Friday.
“And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do? And we made a determination to do it,” Trump said about his decision to sign off on the airstrikes.
He continued, “And I said, Mr. President [Xi], let me explain something to you … so what happens is I said ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles, heading to Iraq.'”
Bartiromo injected and corrected the president, “Headed to Syria.”
“Yes, heading toward Syria,” Trump said.
April 7, 2017 – The Shayrat Missile Strike
With this missile strike and escalation, the pattern is set for provocative actions and reactions. Russian reactions are in motion. Moving into week thirteen in the new US administration, a shifting policy acts to ‘send a message’ to Russia and China — and throughout the Middle East.
With this missile strike, and its shocking moment of announcement as President Trump turns to President Xi and says: “We’ve just launched 59 missiles…”, one has to ask of the consequences beyond the airfield under attack.
In the background is reporting by Sy Hersh in 2013/14 of provocations in Syria. Robert Parry added depth to this reporting with questions of sarin gas use in Idlib and the US attack on a Syrian air base without due investigation of the perpetrators and/or networks involved in the use of the deadly gas. Reports of the transfer of weapons including sarin from Libya to rebel elements in Syria were publicly at issue.
The question of “false flag attacks” and purposeful provocations, the escalations of wars throughout history due to miscalculation, mistake, misguided belief, have to be in asked as missiles are launched.
More than this in the Mideast are consequences beyond the Mideast. The ‘shock and awe’ and reverberations that a Chinese president must have felt this day at Mar-a-Lago.
No doubt, a reaction was triggered at the table. Presidential war powers issues and strategic policy issues come with a launch a launch announcement over “chocolate cake” by a president acting impulsively in front of another global, nuclear-armed rival.
What was the message, the take away from the table? One message for certain was presidential power. We would venture that the singular authority of the U.S. president to act and launch missiles at his command was demonstrated in full-display.
War commands, moment-by-moment, can be what the U.S. president orders.
Immediate Pushback in Syria
MOSCOW — Russia on Friday condemned the U.S. missile strike against Syrian government forces as an attack against its ally, and said it was pulling out of an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft operating over Syria.
Creating effective Iraqi and Syria land forces remain critical challenges. The U.S. has been attempting to create a stable Iraq since 2003, and supported covert operations in Syria since 2012. It returned to a state of war in Iraq in 2014 and has been actively at war in Iraq and Syria since then, flying thousands of air strike sorties.
- Via Military.com / The U.S.-led coalition has flown more than 125,000 sorties in Iraq and Syria since Operation Inherent Resolve began in Aug. 8, 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
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China’s president no doubt gave ‘special’ attention to the 2017 behavior of the U.S. president at Mar-a-Lago.
The results of the breakfast in Mar-a-Lago are for future generations to consider, but one result that is now too evident is an escalating arms race with nuclear weapons at the forefront of the Chinese military capability.
Mar-a-Lago
